Predicting principals’ retention in the principalship through professional development, instructional leadership, and job satisfaction: a cross-national meta-analysis of country-specific structural equation models

This research addressed the global challenge of principal retention by examining associations between principals’ professional development activities and their intention to remain, including indirect associations involving instructional leadership and career and workplace satisfaction across diverse national contexts. Utilising TALIS 2018 data from 8172 principals in 42 countries, we employed a two-stage Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modelling. We estimated country-specific models and synthesized the results using random-effects meta-analysis. Participation in diverse professional development activities was directly and indirectly associated with retention intention, with indirect associations involving instructional leadership and career satisfaction. Instructional leadership was associated with retention intention primarily through career satisfaction. Career satisfaction showed the strongest, albeit small, association with retention intention, whereas workplace satisfaction showed no significant direct association. These findings highlight professional development and career satisfaction as relevant considerations for principal retention policies, although longitudinal research is needed to clarify these relationships and their implications for actual retention.